Painting the Barbican Tower from Iain Lovecrafts 'A Tale of Two Cities' Kickstarter

A Tale of Two Cities: Barbican Tower

An overview Video of the Barbican Tower.

Iain had recently asked if I could do a few test print and paints of some of the models that will be featuring in his new 'A Tale of Two Cities' Kickstarter. I am a huge fan of Iains work, having backed many of his previous Kickstarters and printed many of the models from them.

The second model that I have finished is this lovely Barbican Tower. It is a compact and functional building, with plenty of room inside for miniatures and furniture. The model prints in seven sections, an upper and lower tower, tower roof, small tower, small tower roof and two doors. I printed my model on and Ender 5 using eSun PLA+ with a layer height of 0.2mm.

The first thing that I did was to give the whole model a good base coat of Sandtex - Bitter Chocolate. This is my favourite paint, I'm on to my second 5 Litre Can. I use it to base coat all of my figure bases, terrain boards and all model buildings and other terrain models. It bonds really well and gives a great smooth surface to work on.

After leaving the model for at least 12 hours so that the Sandtex in the deep recesses has completely dried, I made a start with the first of the three coats of drybrushing that I typically use on stone buildings.

I use Acrylic Paint from 'Folk Paint' ranges for painting buildings, it is far more economical than model figure painting acrylic ranges. I always paint buildings (and drybrush miniatures) using Make Up brushes. Theses give fantastic results, they come in a wide range of sizes and shapes and have the perfect bristle for drybrushing. They are also a lot cheaper than model painting brushes. I brought the set that I am using now from Amazon, £10 for 16 brushes. I have been using them every day for the last 3 months and they are holding up well!

The first drybrush coat was a 50/50 mix of Nutmeg Brown and Khaki Tan. I squeezed a little of each colour onto an empty plastic lid, mixed together with brush, then wiped most of the paint off onto a kitchen towel and lightly drybrushed all over with large make up brush.

The acrylic drybrused paint dry's very quickly, so after 5 minutes I applied a second drybrush of 100% Khaki Tan.

After the second drybrush had dried, I used three different stone colours to pick out some individual stones to add interest. For these I did use model paints from Vallejo and Army Painter. The stone colours I used were Khaki Grey, Green Grey and Stone Grey.

I also painted any wood with 'Leather Brown' and the roof tiles with 'Dark Blue Grey'

To finish the model off I drybrushed and wooden areas with 'medium flesh' and then applied Army Painter Blue Tone Ink to roof and 'Strong Tone Ink to wooden areas.

All of the stone work was then given an overall light drybrush with 'Buttermilk' this is good to tone down and blend in the stones that were picked out in different colours and brings the whole model together.

The door was added. This is hinged. You can use PLA filament, but I preferred to use a length of Brass rod. 

The model was then given a couple of coats of Army Painter Matt Varnish to protect it.

The Miniatures shown in the photograph are from Sally 4th's Guards Guard range, available on Gamefound

The Barbican Tower is part of Iain Lovecrafts 'A Tale of Two Cities'

The Barbican Tower benefits from a lovely interior with nice stairs and ladders built in.

The first model from 'A Tale of Two Cities' that I painted was the 'Watchtower'. Click here to take a look at my article about painting that.